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Fast forward to 2018 where crypto exchanges are adding "fiat to alt coin" deposit/withdrawals options instead of solely bitcoin to fiat (crptsy?, BTC-E?). What if when altcoins dump (along side bitcoin), sellers take the cash out of the crypto market in its entirety and don’t go back into Bitcoin as they did in 2014. In the past the alts acted like “out of the money” support for bitcoin price and capital would flow back into bitcoin after a dip. This created capital not leaving the crypto ecosystem but now it easily can because of more exchanges enabling alt coin to fiat withdrawals. This could prolong the bear market of bitcoin to potentially be even worse than the 2014-2016 bear market. Everyone expects this bear market not to be as bad as the last one, but is anyone considering the scenario where this bear market could be longer?
the altcoin market has matured a lot compared to 2014 and altcoins are so much better now than before but even with all that they still remain pretty terrible coins and are still considered as the child market which is used to fuel the pockets of the whales who want an easy coin to pump and dump.
regarding fiat to altcoin markets, there are none that is being used. however there are lots of stable-altcoin to altcoin markets such as USDT which is NOT fiat. and so far it has been used for the purpose of escaping the dumps whenever bitcoin price is going down. which means the same story as always is still going on.
in the past or the present or the near future altcoins have acted as a way for traders to make more money. otherwise the volume of BTC/ALT wouldn't have been the highest volume compared to volume of ALT/ALT or as you want ALT/FIAT. for example ETH which is the biggest coin based on hype and pumps has a ration of 0.14 when you compare its total volume in ETH/BTC markets and ETH/USD, EUR, CNY, JPY GBP
in short if bitcoin's bear market starts up again you can kiss altcoins good bye as they will continue dropping so much harder. you can see the examples of it today and every other day for the pat 9 years. today: bitcoin -3%, most altcoins like ETH: >-10%